Find the Few Living Things
by gloomsday
Summary: Hanna is Not a Boy's Name -- Late night pondering, waffle preparation, and revelations regarding a certain nameless zombie and his best friend, Hanna. m/m, WAFF


1.  
I never watched Hanna sleep. Something about observing someone at their most vulnerable struck me as perverse, not to mention morally ambiguous at best. Especially Hanna: a young man whose well-disguised fragility had become impossible to ignore the longer I remained by his side. The more I pondered it {which I seemed to be doing quite a bit of}, the more I sought to protect him from the dangers he gravitated toward. At the same time, however, I didn't want to believe he was as breakable as I knew he really was. The thought of losing him often brought about a gripping yet somehow welcoming pang of fear in my chest, a feeling I didn't realize I was capable of experiencing anymore.

Needless to say, the moment my gaze rested on Hanna's small, restful form for more than a few seconds, I found myself rushing for the door-which happened more often than you might think.

Some nights Hanna vowed to stay up with me like an eager, overconfident kid at a slumber party. "For real, this time," he said to me last night, embarrassed by the recollection of his previous failures time and time again. He shuffled a worn deck of cards clumsily. "Texas hold 'em or Blackjack?" he asked, grinning all the while.

"You should sleep," I said, just as I'd told him every other night, though secretly glad that he was making yet another genuine effort. Hanna's charming smile persisted, and my resolve faltered just like that. I exhaled in pseudo-begrudging defeat. "Old Maid," I finally said, earning a gleeful laugh from Hanna.

But, of course, he was only human. Or rather, he was delightfully human. Mere hours would transpire before Hanna ended up against my shoulder, sound asleep. His shallow chest rising and falling, steady and calm, right beside me. It was a good thing he weighed next to nothing, because carrying him back to his mattress had become more like a late night ritual than anything else. Not that I minded.

I never watched Hanna sleep, but I sometimes made a mental note of all the different sleeping habits and positions he could contort himself into. He was like a human pretzel, way too skinny for his own good and unexpectedly flexible. Every morning I returned from my now routine walks, and each time he donned a new position.

This morning he lay on his side. His face was pressed into the pillow, legs drawn up against his chest and blankets strewn across the expanse of mattress. Strange; I'd seen that one before. I wasn't particularly surprised that he favored the fetal position, it being the most guarded, cautious and insecure. A tiny spot of drool stained the pillowcase where his partially open mouth met the fabric. At least he wasn't snoring, which I'd cataloged as happening only when he slept on his back. One time he even spoke to me in his sleep. I remember the incident well {for a pleasant change of pace}: he sat up, looked straight at me and began talking about his love for argyle like he was perfectly conscious. I'd always hoped he would do it again, but he hadn't talked in his sleep since, and I spent my nights alone, sleepless as the undead tend to be.

Okay, maybe I did watch him sleep just a little.

2.  
The sun had been up at least an hour by the time I returned, but Hanna was still sleeping when I let myself in-just as I'd suspected. I shut the door behind me, shed my coat and scarf onto the office desk's chair, and set a small bag of groceries on the table. Plucking a box of baking powder from the plastic bag, I circumvented the curled up Hanna on his mattress and tiptoed across the floor toward his meager kitchen. Usually, the smell of whatever I was cooking for breakfast woke him, as I didn't quite have the heart {pun not intended, please} to wake him up on my own. Perhaps that was the true reason I'd started to cook for him in the first place.

I hadn't expected Hanna to have a waffle iron, but if there was one thing I was learning about Hanna, it was that he was unpredictable even in the least of things. I found the experience to be strangely frustrating and refreshing at the same time. But I digress. The antiquated iron didn't look like it had been used in quite some time; it might have been there since before Hanna had even moved in for all I knew. A cleaning binge-brought on by a large, unsightly spider crawling across the floor dangerously close to Hanna the day before yesterday-revealed the household appliance in the back of one of the cabinets. I thought to surprise him this morning, seeing that his past couple of cases hadn't been exactly what one would call successful. I mean, unless you call Conrad getting the shit kicked out of him-yet again-a success {it's still up for debate}.

Pots and pans clanged and clashed together as I struggled to extract the waffle maker from the cabinet as quietly as possible. I grit my teeth and alternated glances between the open cabinet and Hanna, hoping that I hadn't been too loud but realizing that I had.

Hanna moaned to himself and tossed onto his back, his eyes cracking open, still laden with sleep. A flutter of guilt stabbed at whatever remained of my gut; I said not a word and kept still, hoping that he would drift back off to sleep. Instead, he uncurled and stretched beneath the blankets. Hanna's hand emerged from under them as he felt around on the floor beside his mattress, blindly searching for his glasses.

The waffle iron in my hand creaked, and Hanna rolled his head back in alarm, so far back that his eyes met mine, upside down. He smiled and rubbed his eyes before putting his glasses on, head still tossed back.

"Morning, Cornelius!" Hanna said, his voice about an octave deeper before he cleared his throat of morning phlegm. "Sorry about last night. Again." He managed a nervous smile and we held a steady gaze. I reserved no contempt for him and he knew it. Hanna rolled onto his stomach and propped himself up with his elbows. "I had this crazy dream that I was in this hallway with a shit ton of doors, and every door led to the exact same room. _Our_ room," he said slowly, glancing around while perhaps contemplating its significance.

"I'm sorry I woke you," I said, placing the waffle iron on the stove and adjusting the knobs to the proper heat. So much for a surprise. As I turned around, I caught Hanna's eyes as they lit up.

"Whoa! A waffle maker, huh? I didn't even know I had one!" He fought with the blankets his legs were caught up in for a few seconds before standing up and rearranging the over-sized, horizontally striped pajama shirt hanging from his shoulders. The man loved his patterns.

"Me either," I said, opening the refrigerator door and scanning the shelves for a few of the required ingredients. When I lifted my head again-a gallon of milk, a stick of butter and a carton of eggs cradled in my arms-Hanna was standing right beside me. He attempted to smooth his otherwise mussed and untamed hair that reminded me of an adolescent lion's mane. Hanna swung open the cabinet above my head and dragged out three mixing bowls stacked on top of each other.

"This good?" he said, surprisingly awake and in good spirits, despite me having disturbed his sleep. Making breakfast _with_ Hanna instead of _for_ him pleased me, though both of us knew he didn't need to help.

"That'll work." I opened the box of baking powder and poured a small amount into one bowl, not bothering to measure it. "You ever made waffles before?"

"Well," Hanna said, "I didn't know I even _had_ that waffle maker or anything. I bought Belgian waffle mix once, but used a regular pan. It looked like an oily pancake but it sure tasted like a waffle," he said. "You know how?"

"I guess you could say that."

Hanna raised his eyebrows in apparent surprise mixed with poorly veiled excitement. "You remember?" He leaned against the counter beside me, interest piqued. "Or are you _trying_ to remember?"

I frowned. He was more perceptive than I sometimes gave him credit for. "I read a recipe a few days back. Shouldn't be too hard." I flipped the egg carton open and snatched up two eggs. "I probably didn't know how to make waffles when I was alive, anyway." Hanna said nothing in response, so I continued. "Would you like to separate the yolks from the whites?"

That familiar, determined look Hanna often made while trying to solve a case crept across his youthful features. "It's been a while, but I can try, right? How hard can it be?" he said, taking one of the eggs from my hand.

"Just crack it in half and-"

Hanna laughed and readjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. I liked when he did that. "Osiris! You're always so _serious_. It's just an egg!" He cracked it against the counter, right down the center. Separating the two halves of the shell, he poured the yolk and white into the empty half of the eggshell, careful and precise. A small portion of the egg white dripped into the bowl, just as the cookbook explained should happen. Hanna grinned, repeating the process a couple times until all that remained was a single yolk, which he then poured into the third mixing bowl. He took the second egg from me.

Hanna had been doing just fine for himself before I dropped in on him that evening, his business card in my hand and nothing else but the clothes on my back. I had to keep telling myself that. He provided a place for me to stay and companionship I never could have anticipated, with open arms no less. He wasn't the one who had needed me; I had needed him all along and I'm sure he realized that just as I had.

I strove to dispel such thoughts by preparing the rest of the ingredients in silence. Hanna didn't test the hushed waters of our conversation; his unusual placidity confounded {and almost disappointed} me. Then again, I never took him for a morning person either, so perhaps that was the reason. "There's a whisk in the drawer, there," I said at length. "If you want to beat the egg whites."

"I'm on it," Hanna said, watching me all the while.

We worked separately and with little interaction until all of the ingredients had been mixed and combined and whisked and prepared. Looking down at the single bowl of batter, Hanna laughed. "Looks fucking sweet," he said, rubbing his hands together. "Is the iron ready?"

"Should be," I said, opening it up and sweeping my hand a few inches above it. "Would you like to do the honors?"

"Fuck yes!" Hanna said, scooping up the mixing bowl and pouring some of the batter into the mold. I shut it and we both stared at the iron, pleased at our near success. A vague sizzling sound combined with the indistinguishable noises of the city waking up filled the air.

"Thank you," I said quietly, so quiet that it almost came out as a whisper. I turned to him and managed a wry smile. Hanna maneuvered to face me in like manner, suddenly looking so small and vulnerable, just like when he slept. It was difficult for me to bear, seeing him like that.

"For what? I don't mind helping out at all," he said. I noted a curious tinge in his voice.

I blinked, unsure of what to tell him. "No, not-," I sighed. "Just, thank you," I stammered, my words coming out stiff and staccato. It was unlike me {as far as I could tell}, to get tangled up in my thoughts. Somehow, Hanna did it to me, and he did it well.

Hanna raised an eyebrow. "There's nothing to thank _me_ for! You're my partner and I like having you here. You're the best company anyone could ask for, and," his tone wavered for a moment, but he caught himself and crossed his arms, "well, like right now. We're making waffles together. How fucking cool is this, right? They're going to be awesome."

His positivity and happiness, despite the tribulation he'd no doubt been through, always shone through, reflected by his smile and his never-give-up demeanor. He was the most beautiful person I'd ever met. Something within me welled up and twisted. Something alive and fascinating and frightening all at the same time. I needed him more than I could ever remember needing someone before. Even if I could remember my past life, I'm not sure anything would have compared. And I didn't really care to know, either. This was all I needed, right in front of me. I'd follow Hanna to the ends of the Earth if it meant keeping him safe and staying by his side. I wanted him to be happy more than anything.

I wasn't even thinking anymore. Reaching my hands up to Hanna's face, I grasped either side of his jaw gently and brushed my fingers over his sideburns. Hanna didn't move or jerk away but I could feel his body tense a little at the sudden contact; I wasn't exactly sure what I was doing. Even so, he didn't question me either, not even as I bent down and lifted his chin with my thumbs. He was so warm.

I kissed him on the lips for a brief second but broke away, dreading the immediate rejection I was bound to receive. Hanna shied away, as I'd expected; a deep flush spread across the bridge of his nose and his cheeks. He brushed his unruly hair behind his ear, hands shaking slightly. His eyebrows drew up in what I construed as confusion. He wouldn't look at me.

I thought to apologize first, though the words wouldn't form on my tongue. Instead, I drew away from him and busied myself with flipping the waffle iron, desperately wishing for the moment to pass. Hanna still stood by me, hands in his pockets. The balance we'd managed for so long had been broken and he wasn't sure what to think about it. To be honest, I wasn't either.

The wall clock ticked off each agonizing second that passed. For a moment I considered leaving, but I knew I couldn't do it. My mind went all but crazy with regret as I searched my mind for a way to fix what I'd single-handedly damaged. There were no satisfactory answers.

Then I felt his fingers lacing into mine. He squeezed my hand, sidled next to me, and leaned his head against my shoulder. A wave of relief coursed through me. Our eyes met again, neither of us sure where to go from there. I squeezed his hand in silent response and arched downward again so that we were at the same level. Hanna pushed himself onto his toes and returned the kiss; awkward, clumsy, but Hanna. Grasping his arm with my free hand, I pushed him gently against the counter beside the stove and lifted him up onto it, kissing him and touching him in earnest the whole time.

Neither of us said a word to each other; there were enough words in the unspoken, in the way Hanna wrapped his arms around my back and his hands ghosted over my shoulder blades. Questioning, exploring, self-conscious and hesitant.

Needless to say, neither of us cared that our waffle was burning, either.


End file.
